For over a year, I have been using the term “Witch Hunts”to refer to the actions of some people who are violently opposed to the existence on the Human Terrain System. It is important that people realize that when I use that term, it is not being used in the normal meaning of political hyperbole but, rather, in the very technical sense of a well understood social process. When it comes to Witchcraft and its associated processes, I actually do know what I am talking about, having done my MA on the topic and published and presented in the area.

What is a “Witch Hunt”?

In the “classic” formulation of studying witchcraft (see E.E. Evans-Pritchard Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande and Jeanne Favret-Saada Deadly Words: Witchcraft in the Bocage), a “witch hunt” operates using a very simple mechanism.  Person A has something happen to them, X.  Now, person A cannot accept that X is either their fault or that “sierra happens” but, rather, must blame it on the actions of some mysterious other person, W (the “Witch”).  In many cases, the actual identity of W is unknown, so person A must engage the services of person B - a “witch finder”, “witch doctor”, “inquisitor, etc. - to identify the actual agent responsible - the “Witch”.  Person B identifies the “Witch” and, as part of the identification, fixes all of the blame for action X on them.

The process of identification operates in a number of different ways but, usually starts with the identification of a “pattern of action” that causes disquiet in the mind of the inquisitor.  Usually, there is o single individual involved in the pattern of action, i.e. it is often a collective group that is engaging in the actions, so either the most easily identified person or the weakest person in the group (i terms of social power) is selected as the entry point for an inquisition.  This process is often undertaken along with a concerted propaganda effort aimed at constructing the entire pattern of action as “evil”; a propaganda effort that can be best described by the phrase “throw enough sierra and some will stick, then follow the smell”.

In social systems that have institutionalized witch hunts, the next, inquisitorial, phase then happens.  The identified “Witch” is brought in and “put to the question”.  In the classic Witch Craze of Western Europe (~1485 - 1750), this often meant torture until a confession was wrenched from the “Witch”, while the American version (under McCarthy), merely caused job loss, imprisonment and utter destruction of people’s social lives.  In almost all cases, part of the inquisition phase involves forcing out the names of “co-conspiritors” who “obviously” supported the evil work of the original “Witch”.  This process tends to run until one group or faction has been totally destroyed. Witch Hunts are the ultimate form of scapegoating.

All witch hunts require an interpretive framework; something to say that X was the fault of W.  But interpretive frameworks are malleable and subject to redefinition; a point I mentioned in my last post with  reference to The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger.  And, as I noted then, the framework had to be tweaked in order to meet the immediate needs of social conflict making witch hunts acceptable to the general populace without sparking an overt war.  More importantly, the frameworks establish the rules by which a Witch can be legally (according to the framework) identified as such and the “appropriate penalty” applied.  The following is, actually, a good example of the logic used.

A modern day witch hunt

Let us consider whether or not the process of attacking the Human Terrain System and, especially, in the person of attacking Dr. Montgomery McFate falls into this pattern.

Person A suffers from event X

There is no, specific, individual that appears to have suffered an event that is describable as “evil”, however, there is a group/discipline that has: Anthropology.  This “evil” has been described by McFate in a 2005 article, where she notes on page 28 that

Although anthropology is the only academic discipline that explicitly seeks to understand foreign cultures and societies, it is a marginal contributor to U.S. national-security policy at best and a punch line at worst. Over the past 30 years, as a result of anthropologists’ individual career choices and the tendency toward reflexive self-criticism contained within the discipline itself, the discipline has become hermetically sealed within its Ivory Tower.

Her comments in that, and other, articles clearly did not endear her to academic Anthropologists.  Indeed, in the same article, McFate has the audacity to follow this particular accusation with a rather accurate description of the historical engagement between Anthropology and the military during the 20th century listing instance after instance where Anthropologists worked hand in glove with both Colonial administrators and military personelle.

Unfortunately, McFate did not go into the reasons why the discipline took this “reflexive” turn, one of which had to do with the growing employment of Anthropologists outside of the Academy.  For example, by 1980, the majority of new Anthropology Ph.D.s worked outside of academia due, in part, to an increase in Ph.D. graduates and a lack of new academic positions for them to fill.  This led to the odd position of the discipline being de jure defined within the academy, but de facto defined by the non-academic practitioners and, also, by the popular media. Indeed, many people outside of the academy seem to think that Anthropology actually means Archeology!

This confusion has been exacerbated by a trend towards using extremely opaque language, much of which is derived from literary criticism.  I should note, it is also a trend that has generated quite a bit of humour as exemplified by the following

(source: xkcd.com)

So, we have the “problem”, the X in the Witch Hunt equation: disciplinary irrelevance to current events (defined within the national security / military domain).  Obviously, no academic Anthropologist is likely to say “Yup. We’re irrelevant and I’m proud of it!”.  Indeed, such a statement a) would stand in direct opposition to the meaning structures that are promulgated within academic Anthropology and b) would not really serve as a good recruiting mechanism for students.

Now, the “irrelevance” issue had been raised before McFate’s 2005 article is relation to the PRISP (see here,  here, and here) and drawn strong reactions.  These reactions were based on a moral stance using historical problems with the engagement of Anthropology and the military (see here, here, and here).  In effect, the arguments put forward by a number of people were based on moral purity; an argument line that goes “the military has misused Anthropological knowledge to commit evil therefore it must not be allowed to be used again.”.  In this framework, the military is a source of evil and any Anthropologist who works with them is “inheriting” that Evil through a process of contagion.

Identifying the Witch, tweaking the framework

While no individual was identified as a Witch” during the PRISP controversy, it being treated more as a doctrinal controversy, McFate’s 2005 article brought her to the attention of the anti-military faction inside academic Anthropology.  Lacking the power to attack the military itself, the anti-military faction soon identified McFate as one of the key players in a secretive “coven” plotting to misuse Anthropological knowledge in the service of the military.  The problem, of course, was finding the right indicator of her staus as a “witch” - after all, many of the founders of American Anthropology had worked with the military (and the OSS) during the Second World War so, clearly, working with the military was not a sufficient condition for establishing “Witch” status, this would require two other things; proof of academic “misuse” and “proof” of “evil”.

Interestingly enough, the establishment of “evil” was already built into the discipline by its academic founder, Franz Boas. In a letter to Dewey (11/6/39, quoted here), Boas defined “good” as

There are two things to which I am devoted: absolute academic and spiritual freedom, and the subordination of the state to the interests of the individual; expressed in other forms, the furthering of conditions in which the individual can develop to the best of his ability — as far as it is possible with a full understanding of the fetters imposed upon us by tradition; and the fight against all forms of power policy of states or private organizations.

Earlier, in a letter to the Nation (20/12/19 quoted here) he defined “evil” conduct, the greatest malleficium, as

A person, however, who uses science as a cover for political spying, who demeans himself to pose before a foreign government as an investigator and asks for assistance in his alleged researches in order to carry on, under this cloak, his political machinations, prostitutes science in an unpardonable way and forfeits the right to be classed as a scientist.

The only tweaking required was to a) define what current Anthropologists did as a “science” or, at the minimum, as an oppositional force to “all forms of power policy”, b) “prove” that McFate was a spy, an c) “prove” that she had committed academic misuse of her knowledge (spying would count for this).

In order to get this “proof”, a concerted attack on the Human Terrain System was undertaken.  This attack focused on a) identifying individuals involved in the HTS, b) identifying problems with the HTS, c) identifying academic “misuse” issues with the HTS and d) looking for examples of “spying” from HTS operations.  For a while, this four pronged attack focused on problems with “informed consent” (a misuse issue) and, also, on the possible “spying” activities of Laurie Adler (the PR person working with the HTS).  Recently, however, the focus has shifted back to McFate.

Proving Malleficium

The “proof” of malleficium by both the HTS  and McFate came in a twin set of articles in such unbiased publications as Pravda and Mother Jones (and, as we all know, Pravda means Truth).  In the two-part Pravda article (part 1, part 2), we find such wonderful sources as “sources” which all describe the HTS program as being in complete disarray.  The second Pravda article, however, draws on the story from Mother Jones article which, supposedly, “proves” that Montgomery McFate operated as a private intelligence agent, aka “spy”.  Having now clearly “proven” that Dr.McFate weighs the same as a duck, the witchfinders aka “activists” are now circling in as witnessed by this poster that recently appeared in her DC neighborhood.

(source: I Spy NRA Spy, Washington City Paper)

Who’s next?

Witch hunts rarely stop with one victim, and other people are already in the sights of the zealous guardians of public morality.  It is so reassuring to know that those who demand toleration believe that this demand should be incarnated with such a traditional mechanism as a witch hunt.  After all, witch hunts are, at their core, about establishing the dominance, both social and moral, of one group over another through the use of tactics that can only be described as “terrorist”; a process to gladen the heart of any 16th century Dominican or psychotic irhabi living in a cave.

Let me finish this post with the words of Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn’t a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.